40 years ago, the world lost the famed Chicken Ranch

With a hat tip to the esteemed Houstorian Twitter feed, I was reminded today of another Texas anniversary. It was 40 years ago on this date that the infamous Chicken Ranch in La Grange was shuttered. The brothel, also the subject of ZZ Top’s La Grange, was an open secret in Texas for some time.

The Chicken Ranch, which received national attention after the staging of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on Broadway, reportedly was the oldest continuously operating brothel in the nation when it closed in August 1973, following an expose by KTRK consumer reporter and Houston broadcasting god Marvin Zindler.

It was just last year that Edna Milton Chadwell, the last madam of the Chicken Ranch, passed away at the age of 84. The Chronicle’s Tony Freemantle wrote a thorough obituary you can check out below, with juicy Chicken Ranch details included.

If you have any older relatives who lived around these parts at the time, they no doubt have a few interesting anecdotes related to the ranch. We’ll always have this to pass the story on to future generations. And that really cheesy Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds flick, of course.

Back in the 60′s and 70′s there was a rather run down motel in Denton that was right on I-35. It was on the west side of the highway and back then was out there all by itself.

It was famous as a hook-up place between guys from UNT and gals from TWU. No money ever changed hands, but if you wanted to spend the evening with a stranger that was the place to go. It drove the Denton Police and the DPS nuts because no laws were being broken. All the activity took place between consenting adults.

And then it was gone. Leveled to the ground sometime during the late 70′s.

Today there is a small office building that that appears to be used by some Baptist group. It appears they found a way to deal with the decay of public morals by just buying out the owner of the motel.

My favorite memory is the year AFTER Marvin tore the rag off the bush.
He went back to La Grange to do a “LOOKING BACK IN RETROSPECT” and was met by Sheriff Flournoy, who wasn’t amused. The Sheriff wouldn’t allow the cameras to be turned on but the sound was working real fine as the Sheriff ranted and raged as poor Marvin kept saying “O come on Sheriff, don’t push” and such concluding with a loud “DON’T DO THAT SHERIFF”! Or words of that nature as the Sheriff snatched Marvin’s wig off his head.
On the following newscast, the gracious Marvin said “Sheriff, you could have asked for a wig because if I had known you wanted one…..I could have mailed it to you”.

It doesn’t say the picture was taken during the pre-closing days, only that it LOOKED the same. So, the picture was taken in 1979 but the ranch still looked like it did before it closed. Does that clear it up?